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Pop-up notification from ISP? Huh?

WiseUp216

WiseUp216

Platinum Member
Well, I've never seen this before.

I was using Chrome and got a pop-up in the lower right hand corner that appeared to be from my ISP (Cox) letting me know that their e-mail servers are down. I've never used their e-mail services. There were no links in the pop-up so it wasn't some kind of clever phishing attack.

Around 30-45 minutes later, I start Steam and the same pop-up appears on the front store page. What the hell?

I guess I'm not surprised that they can do this but some part of me doesn't like it. I have *never* installed any piece of software related to Cox Communications.

Has anyone else seen something like this from their ISP?
 
ISPs have been doing deep packet inspection on web traffic for a while now, and many are now playing with taking that to the next level, where they modify web traffic inline for various purposes. For now, it's for "alerts" to "help" you, but keep in mind that cable companies routinely splice their own commercials into the TV channel feesd, so it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to guess what they're really building this expensive capability to be able to do...
 
Bottom line is that any traffic you create goes over your ISP. They know what you're looking at and can manipulate it in real time. This is not new and it's not going away.

You're using their network and you agreed to their terms and conditions.

If you don't like it, start your own ISP.

Also, SSL doesn't save you.
 
Their network ends at my Cable modem. After that it is my network and they have no right injecting unrequested code into my private network.
 
They're not injecting stuff into your data stream on "your" network. They're doing it in their own network, before it even gets to you.
 
Can an Internet provider like CenturyLink (formerly known as Qwest, I think) do deep packet inspection, too? Or, are they prohibited from doing that due to some kind of regulations? I expect that Internet providers who use coax cable for their network like Cox and Cable One aren't restricted from using deep packet inspection. A while ago I heard that certain Internet providers couldn't use deep packet inspection because of their history in the telecommunications industry but newer forms of Internet access were fair game for deep packet inspection. Is that still true or was it not true to begin with?
 
drebo said:
Bottom line is that any traffic you create goes over your ISP. They know what you're looking at and can manipulate it in real time. This is not new and it's not going away.

You're using their network and you agreed to their terms and conditions.

If you don't like it, start your own ISP.

Also, SSL doesn't save you.
Click to expand...

If you use end-to-end encryption like SSL, your ISP (or any eavesdropper) CANNOT read or modify the content of the payload, I.E. they could not put in their own ads on a webpage. What SSL will not prevent is the ISP from seeing the source/dest IP addresses and the size of content.
 
masteryoda34 said:
If you use end-to-end encryption like SSL, your ISP (or any eavesdropper) CANNOT read or modify the content of the payload, I.E. they could not put in their own ads on a webpage. What SSL will not prevent is the ISP from seeing the source/dest IP addresses and the size of content.
Click to expand...

SSL decryption/re-encryption is not new technology. It's been around for a long time and it is in use today.

I do not believe there are any ISPs currently using it, but they could if they wanted. There are many, many corporations that do use it, though. Heck, you can do it on a $1600 Palo Alto PA-200.

SSL stops casual observers. It doesn't stop your ISP.
 
drebo said:
SSL decryption/re-encryption is not new technology. It's been around for a long time and it is in use today.

I do not believe there are any ISPs currently using it, but they could if they wanted. There are many, many corporations that do use it, though. Heck, you can do it on a $1600 Palo Alto PA-200.

SSL stops casual observers. It doesn't stop your ISP.
Click to expand...

But does that not require that they get their root certs installed onto your machine first?
 
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